my microcosm

White Rose Poster

A celebration of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi resistance group best known for distributing leaflets against the Nazi's and painting anti-Hitler graffiti around Munich.
Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell acted alone at first, writing and duplicating an editorial leaflet with the heading: "Leaflets of The White Rose". The piece was scathing in its criticism of every-day Germans who sat back and did nothing to combat the Third Reich. The leaflet went on to suggest passive resistance as the best way to silently encourage the downfall of the government.

Three more leaflets quickly appeared, all with the same heading: "Leaflets of The White Rose". Each of these documents was more hard-hitting than the last, while more and more friends of Hans and Alex began to contribute. Two final leaflets appeared, one in January 1943 and the last around February 18th. These were headed "Leaflets of the Resistance"..
The members of The White Rose worked day and night, cranking a hand-operated duplicating machine thousands of times to create the leaflets which were each stuffed into envelopes, stamped and mailed from various major cities in Southern Germany. Recipients were chosen from telephone directories and were generally scholars, medics and pub-owners (which seemed to puzzle the Gestapo -- but who better to spread the word or post a leaflet!).

While Hans and Alex alone drafted the first four leaflets, they counted on Christoph Probst to comment and criticize. Jürgen edited the third and fourth leaflets and traveled to Berlin with the dangerous documents. Willi contributed to the fifth leaflet and did a generous amount of leg-work, getting supplies and trying to recruit support outside of Munich. Sophie worked hard at getting stamps and paper (one couldn't buy too many stamps at one place without arousing suspicion) and also managed the group's funds. Kurt Huber contributed to the fifth leaflet and solely drafted the sixth (and final) leaflet, while Hans was apprehended with a rough-draft of a seventh leaflet written by Christoph Probst. All members traveled throughout Southern Germany (and beyond) to mail stacks of leaflets from undetectable locations. Hundreds of leaflets were also left at the University of Munich, carefully hand-delivered in the middle of the night.

*Have your poster shipped in a Poster Tube for extra protection! Posters not shipped in tubes will be folded in half for packaging and are more subject to wear while shipping.